The lapidary, pressing his two hands on his breast, again commenced examining the individual before him from head to foot, as if determined to satisfy his mind as to her ident.i.ty. His features expressed a painful uncertainty, and, instead of continuing to watch the features of his daughter, he seemed as if trying to hide himself from her sight, saying, in a low, murmuring, broken tone:
"No, no! It is a dream! Where am I? It is impossible! I dream,--it cannot be she!" Then, observing the gold strewed on the floor, he cried, "And this gold! I do not remember,--am I then awake? Oh, my head is dizzy! I dare not look,--I am ashamed! She is not my Louise!"
"Come!" cried the doctor, in a loud voice.
"Father! Dearest father!" exclaimed Louise. "Do you not know your child,--your poor Louise?" And as she said these words she threw herself on the lapidary"s neck, while the doctor motioned for the rest of the group to advance.
"Gracious heavens!" exclaimed Morel, while Louise loaded him with caresses. "Where am I? What has happened to me? Who are all these persons? Oh, I cannot--dare not believe the reality of what I see!"
Then, after a short silence, he abruptly took the head of Louise between his two hands, gazed earnestly and searchingly at her for some moments, then cried, in a voice tremulous with emotion, "Louise?"
"He is saved!" said the doctor.
"My dear Morel,--my dear husband!" exclaimed the lapidary"s wife, mingling her caresses with those of her daughter.
"My wife! My child and wife both here!" cried Morel.
"Pray don"t overlook the rest of your friends, M. Morel," said Rigolette, advancing; "see, we have all come to visit you at once!"
"I for one am delighted to renew my acquaintance with the worthy M.
Morel," said Germain, coming forward and extending his hand.
"And your old acquaintances at the lodge beg that they may not be overlooked," chimed in Anastasie, leading Alfred up to the astonished and delighted lapidary. "You know us, don"t you, M. Morel,--the Pipelets--the hearty old Pipelets, and your everlasting friends? Come, pluck up courage, and look about you, M. Morel! Hang it all, Daddy Morel, here"s a happy meeting! May we see many such! _Ail-l-l-l-ez donc!_"
"M. Pipelet and his wife! Everybody here! It seems to me so long since--but--but no matter--"tis you, Louise, my child--"tis you, is it not?" exclaimed he, joyfully pressing his daughter in his arms.
"Oh, yes, my dearest father, "tis your own poor Louise! And there is my mother; here are all our kind friends. You will never quit us more, never know sorrow or care again, and henceforward we shall all be happy and prosperous!"
"Happy? Let me try and recollect a little of past things. I seem to have a faint recollection of your being taken to prison--and--and then, Louise, all seems a blank and confusion here," continued Morel, pressing his hand to his temples.
"Never mind all that, dearest father! I am here and innocent,--let that comfort and console you."
"Stay, stay! That note of hand I gave! Ah, now I remember it all!" cried the lapidary, with shuddering horror. Then, in a voice of a.s.sumed calmness, he said, "And what has become of the notary?"
"He is dead, dearest father," murmured Louise.
"Dead? He dead? Then indeed I may hope for happiness! But where am I?
How came I here? How long have I left my home, and wherefore was I brought hither? I have no recollection of any of these things!"
"You were extremely ill," said the doctor, "and you were brought here for air and good nursing. You have had a severe fever, and been at times a little lightheaded."
"Yes, yes, I recollect now; and when I was taken ill I remember I was talking with my daughter, and some other person,--who could it be? Ah, now I know!--a kind, good man, named M. Rodolph, who saved me from being arrested. Afterwards, strange to say, I cannot recall a single circ.u.mstance."
"Your illness was attended with an entire absence of memory," said the doctor.
"And in whose house am I now?"
"In that of your friend, M. Rodolph," interposed Germain, hastily; "it was thought that country air would be serviceable to you, and promote your recovery."
"Excellent!" said the doctor, in a low tone; then speaking to a keeper who stood near him, he said, "Send the coach around to the garden-gate to prevent the necessity of taking our recovered patient through the different courts, filled with those less fortunate than himself."
As frequently occurs in cases of madness, Morel had not the least idea or recollection of the aberration of intellect under which he had suffered.
Shortly afterwards, Morel, with his wife and daughter, ascended the _fiacre_, attended also by a surgeon of the establishment, who, for precaution"s sake, was charged to see him comfortably settled in his abode ere he left him; and in this order, and followed by a second carriage, conveying their friends, the lapidary quitted Bicetre without entertaining the most remote suspicion of ever having entered it.
"And do you consider this poor man effectually cured?" asked Madame Georges of the doctor, as he led her to the coach.
"I hope so, at least; and I wished to leave him wholly to the beneficial effects of rejoining his family, from whom it would now be almost dangerous to attempt to separate him; added to which, one of my pupils will remain with him and give the necessary directions for his regimen and treatment. I shall visit him myself daily, until his cure is confirmed, for not only do I feel much interested in him, but he was most particularly recommended to me when he first came here by the _charge d"affaires_ of the Grand Duke of Gerolstein."
A look of intelligence was exchanged between Germain and his mother.
Much affected with all they had seen and heard, the party now took leave of the doctor, reiterating their gratification at having been present during so gratifying a scene, and their grateful acknowledgments for the politeness he had shown them in conducting them over the establishment.
As the doctor was reentering the house, he was met by one of the superior officers of the place, who said to him,--
"Ah, my dear M. Herbin, you cannot imagine the scene I have just witnessed; it would have afforded an inexhaustible fund of reflection for so skilful an observer as yourself."
"To what do you allude?"
"You are aware that we have here two females, a mother and a daughter, who are condemned to death, and that their execution is fixed for to-morrow. Well, in my life, I never witnessed such a cool indifference as that displayed by the mother; she must be a female fiend!"
"You allude to the Widow Martial, I presume; what fresh act of daring has she committed?"
"You shall hear. She had requested permission to share her daughter"s cell until the final moment arrived; her wish was complied with. Her daughter, far less hardened than her parent, appeared to feel contrition as the hour of execution approached, while the diabolical a.s.surance of the old woman seemed, if possible, to augment. Just now the venerable chaplain of the prison entered their dungeon to offer to them the consolations of religion. The daughter was about to accept them, when the mother, without for one instant losing her coolness or frigid self-possession, began to a.s.sail the chaplain with such insulting and derisive language that the venerable priest was compelled to quit the cell, after trying in vain to induce the violent and unmanageable woman to listen to one word he said.
"It is a fearful fact connected with this family that a sort of depravity seems to pervade it. The father was executed, a son is now in the galleys, a second has only escaped a public and disgraceful end by flight; while the eldest son and two young children have alone been able to resist this atmosphere of moral contagion.
"What a singular circ.u.mstance connected with this double execution it is that the day of mid-Lent should have been selected. At seven o"clock to-morrow, the hour fixed, the streets will be filled with groups of masqueraders, who, having pa.s.sed the night at the different b.a.l.l.s and places of entertainment beyond the barriers, will be just returning home; added to which, at the place of execution, the Barriere St.
Jacques, the noise of the revels still being kept up in honour of the carnival can be distinctly heard."
The following morning"s sun rose bright and cloudless. At four o"clock in the morning various troops of soldiers surrounded the approaches to Bicetre.
We shall now return to Calabash and her mother in their dungeon.
CHAPTER IX.
THE TOILET.
The condemned cell of Bicetre was situated at the end of a gloomy pa.s.sage, into which a trifling portion of light and air was admitted by means of small gratings let into the lower part of the wall. The cell itself would have been wholly dark but for a kind of wicket, let into the upper part of the door, which opened into the corridor before mentioned.
In this wretched dungeon, whose crumbling ceiling, damp, mouldy walls, and stone-paved floor struck a death-chill like that of the grave, were confined the Widow Martial, and her daughter Calabash.